Comments on: Are emotions taking over from science in the climate debate?

By: Ice-Blogger

Ice-Blogger — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:59:52 +0000

Thanks for your comment. While we always have to keep an open mind to new research and developments, I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of scientists and the evidence tell us what is happening is not just natural variability or caused only by solar influence.
At the moment, I don’t see signs of hysteria. On the contrary, the climate debate seems to have slipped off the main news agenda.
I think the debate did become too emotional, but that applied to both sides, those who say human-influenced climate change is happening and those who deny that.
I certainly agree with you that pollution, exploitation of non-renewable resources, biodiversity extinctions and the growing population are key problems we have to tackle. But you cannot take climate change out of the equation.

By: van Loon

van Loon — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:51:33 +0000

I question the number 95%. Many of my colleagues think that the human influence on climate is not as high as the models tell us. The swings we have seen so far lie within the natural variability of climate; and it is probable that much of the changes are owing to solar influences. Unfortunately, scientists themselves have whipped up the hysteria surrounding climate variability. One of the worst was Schneider, who started out warning about global cooling in his book The Genesis Strategy in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, the attention have been diverted from the real problems: pollution of air, water, and soil; explotation of non-renewable resources; extinction of flora and fauna; and the behind most of this: Growing human population.